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In Reply to: RE: I doubt it.... posted by abs1 on June 08, 2012 at 21:12:01
I'm not suggesting that all audiophile recording are works of art. What I am saying is if you are walking along a road and see a load of horse manure, no matter how it is shaped it is still horse manure.
BTW, I would not share this opinion with those who find some kind of artistic merit in loud, screaming atonal rock or or Hip Hop noise. If that is there poison of choice then hardly be it for me to try and convince the crap lover that the emperor is in fact not wearing any cloths.
Hope I have not offended any horse manure lovers.
Follow Ups:
There's a thin line between music snob and music bigot, but it sounds like you crossed that line long ago. Perhaps, with electrodes used in the right places you could be rehabilitated into a music lover, but I doubt it.
As long as there has been music, there have been music snobs. I'm convinced there would have been people dismissing Bach as populist, when he was tempering music and setting the seeds for all modern western music.
A good system can play any kind of music, and can be owned by any kind of music lover. It's why I'm a big fan of Audio Note's approach to this. Last time I was at a show, Audio Note was the only room playing Schubert. It was also the only room playing Peaches. And everything in between. If it sounds good on both, it must be good. But by limiting to one genre, you risk making an unhinged system. Playing a system on rock music alone will make artificially pitched systems, as does making systems uniquely tested on jazz or classical. I've heard systems selected by people who only listen to opera, and they invariably create a big soundstage, but lacking in detail compared to those designed for orchestral replay. So it is with a system designed with rock, which can have better dynamic range and headroom than many classical-designed systems, but which frequently is pitched toward the frequency extremes. A good system does all that, and only does it if the person putting the system together listens to everything.
Dead WASPs and 1950s heroin addicts were not the only people with the keys to music, and as soon as audio gets past playing to a tiny slice of the music buying market, the sooner it gets back to selling to real people.
Have you ever considered that the reason why Wilson might have been playing grunge (and it probably wasn't grunge, that was 20 years ago... it was probably Americana) is that Wilson needs to start selling loudspeakers to people born after the baby boom.
Yep, if positing that some popular styles could be better categorized as atonal cacophonous noise that some elitist insist should be given the respect and standing as any other genre then I suppose that would make me using your words, a "music bigot".
Interestingly, it was you who referred to the music era of the 50s as being populated by "Dead WASPs and Heroin addicts" and yet you dismiss my characterization as being snobbish and dismissive. Snobbish, no. Dismissive, absolutely.
I do not believe that simply giving a genre a name and then reviewing it as if it has some intrinsic merit does not constitute the qualities that give music value. That's right, I am suggesting that there standards that transcend the popularity of the music du jour.
I really can't even coherently respond to comparing how people saw the music of Bach in the pre-classical era to todays current musical grab bag. I would only pose one serious question
regarding the respective merits in evaluating the merits of a musical genre.
Years from now will it be taught in our music schools, will the music likely still find an audience
once the popular craze fades out? In other words, will the music transcend the immediate era that produced it?
For some misguided reason, I doubt that the screaming trash being blasted from punk rock et. al. nor profanity filled lyrics of rap will ever find a place in the authentic and lasting musical hall of fame and not the self serving rating driven award shows.
Yeah, I doubt that in generations to come, people will look back and nostalgically long for Rage The Machine or the lovely verses of Tupac Shacur as they call for the destruction of everything.
One last thing. Wilson Audio which is usually one of the most popular rooms at audio shows was nearly empty when the Grundge Smudge was playing. Put on some Miles or Ella and you have standing room only.
By defining this as 'dead WASPs and 50s heroin addicts', I do not dismiss this. About 20% of my music collection is jazz-oriented and about 50% fits under the catch-all 'classical'.
Years from now, the only music that will be listened to from the 20th Century will likely be written by Stravinsky. And that will only be the musicologists. But working out what will be remembered years from now doesn't help sell things today.
Miles Davis... forget it, he'll be consigned to the forgotten pile in 20 years. Most people - except jazzers - couldn't tell Ella apart from Sarah Vaughan now. The music of the 1950s was tuneless pap for those who were born in the 19th Century and it will be bland historical pap for those born in the 21st. This has always been the case. My parents loved Frank Sinatra and hated The Beatles, my kids hate them both as 'ancient history'.
If the Wilson room is only packed with people listening to Miles Davis, it says more about the age of the audiophile audience than it does about the music itself. And if Wilson wants to keep going when its audience is more likely to spend money on a new hip than a new pair of loudspeakers, it HAS to play music that its new audience is receptive to. And that isn't jazz anymore.
fds
There is very little about your post that I take issue with. Your comment about "spending money on a new hip rather a new pair of loudspeaker" is one of the funniest lines I have ever read on AA.
Only my sense of integrity would prevent me from claiming authorship when I use it. I am obligated to give credit to you.
As I make my yearly trek to the CES (over 30 years), various audio shows and the local audiophile society, I am struck with how old most of the attendees are. Of course, I'm the only one who hasn't aged. Only all the others.
Along with this, I see a diminishing number of B&M stores and I find this fact a bit sad but not
all together depressing. Why? I find the overall quality of audio gear steadily evolving. There is no shortage of software whether it be digital or analogue and I have friends to share my passion even though my wife couldn't care less accept for the aesthetics of the gear.
Sure jazz is not near as popular now as it was in the 50s and 60s. I used to go to Shelley's Manhole in Hollywood where I saw Astrid Gilberto and Stan Getz perform amongst others. But the good thing is I can still readily purchase recording from that era and often from higher resolution sources than the original. I am a big fan of SACD and high rez on computer audio if I can ever figure out how to get mine to work.
One last thing, I assume that Wilson Audio is still doing well but their mega buck speakers will never appeal or be affordable to the "look what the cat dragged in" crowd. That will have to be left to old geezers like me.
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